The Duality of Anxiety

By: Kennedy Ani

In our interview with Shaaz Gillani we learn of Shaaz's quest to master Urdu in order to connect with his friends and family in Pakistan. Urdu is a complex language and relies heavily on pronunciation. Unlike most people, Shaaz used his anxiety and errors as a source of motivation to learn the language quicker and better. Shaaz is currently fluent in Urdu, with the occasional mishap here and there.

Jane Arnold in Affect in Language Learning describes a debilitating anxiety that harms learners’ performance in many ways, both indirectly and through worry and self-doubt and directly by reducing participation and creating overt avoidance of the language. Harmful anxiety is related to plummeting motivation, negative attitudes and beliefs, and language performance difficulties. Most people exhibit a harmful anxiety when learning a new language and it discourages them. Shaaz on the other hand did not let this anxiety deter him from learning Urdu, he used it as motivation. It’s not uncommon for people to use stress factors as positives, for instance many individuals who play sports or take test will do this. An important factor in language anxiety is identification. Anxiety is lower if someone identifies with a language group and is higher when someone does not. Paradoxically, anxiety can arise due to over identification and a loss of personal identity. In Shaaz’s attempt to over-identify with his Urdu family and friends it is likely that he increased his anxiety levels than if he was just casually learning the language. Luckily, his anxiety was not a crutch but a source of motivation, so his over identification was better in the long run. Arnold, Jane. "4. Anxiety and the Language Barrier." Affect in Language Learning. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 1999. 58-67. Print.